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Friday, January 24

After a quiet, but brisk Friday, the weather will become a little snowy at times late tonight into Saturday with periods of snow laying down a region wide 1 to 3" from after midnight tonight through Saturday ahead & with the Arctic cold front. A burst of snow will likely accompany the Arctic front sometime between about 3 & 6pm. Behind the front, it will turn bitterly cold with some lake snows setting up, that could be pretty significant for a short time Saturday night into the start of Sunday. Temperatures will likely nose dive to 0 to -5 by early Sunday with wind chills between -25 & -10, some blowing & drifting snow. Any lake snows around to start Sunday, which will likely be significant should be short lived, as winds become southwest in advance of the next weather maker due to arrive late Sunday into Monday morning. The amounts of snow should be significant, several inches, in spots, which could include the Greater Rochester area late Saturday night into the start of Sunday, but it all depends on exactly where the potential, multiple Great Lake connection snow band sets up. Stay tuned into the weekend & Stacey will have the latest.

The clipper snow late Sunday into Monday morning will not be a big snow maker, but enough to make it very slick Sunday night into the start of Monday. Behind the clipper, more wind, lake snow & bitter cold Monday night into Tuesday. The cold should ease thereafter later next week & possibly for Super Bowl weekend. We shall see...

Everyone, please remember that the 3-5" forecast from NWS is from now till Sunday morning. A few inches tonight, and a few tomorrow, just like Scott said. The headline tomorrow is the wind, windchill, and blowing snow.

Snowdog, when you go to drive tomorrow, I guarantee you will not be saying "what a joke"... Just be happy with an area wide snowfall. With lake enhancement, some people may end the weekend seeing a foot of snow!

I am guessing that if the wind gusts do indeed occur it will really be difficult to ascertain how much snow has fallen because of the blowing snow issue. While we haven't seemed to get the "whopper" storm, this winter has been interesting for sure. At least for me anyways. Drive safe everyone!

Channel 13 states an inch or less tonight and an inch or less tomorrow. Sorry this is pathetic and the NWS will remove the Winter Storm warnings by tomorrow morning once they realize their mistake and over-reaction.

I disagree. Most of us have about 2 inches of compacted lake effect snow. It will not blow around. 1-2 inches of new snow and some wind does not warrant a Winter Storm Warning. I never heard if Winter Storm Warning for blowing 1-2 inch snow. Sorry I have lived hear a long time and this is laughable. Why is East of us only in a Winter weather advisory??? I agree with a winter weather advisory but not a WSW.

I'm with you up until Thursday. That's right around when the pattern should start to get interesting in the East again. The PNA ridge will start to relax soon enough and allow the subtropical jet back into the picture.

I was a bit surprised when the weather service issued the winter storm warning. As mentioned above, the real "issue" will be the wind, and the fluffy nature of the snow. It'll come down briefly heavy, and whatever snow is already on the ground will whip around creating whiteout conditions. Plus lake enhancement/effect Saturday night could add some decent accumulations north & east. We've had warnings issued for much bigger snows that don't create big issues, so the wind/snow combination is the winning factor. Still, I must say I was NOT expecting the warning!

As far as the "big storm" potential goes, Scott said earlier this week on-air that he's betting on a bigger storm come February, and my gut is telling me the same (maybe it's just hungry?). Regardless, this has been a very fun winter to forecast. Lots of activity, whether it's nickel and dime snows, or the big-time cold. I dig it!

Thanks Stacey. I agree. I think the Winter Storms warnings are overkill for what we are going to get. It looks like Rochester will not get the lake enhancement since it will be North and East of Rochester. That has been the story with lake effect all year. It stays North of route 104 and into Wayne county.

We could get a little help from Lake Huron, which still has some open water. Sometimes that band has a tendency to hit northern Orleans County, as well. I wouldn't be shocked if that was one of those cases late Saturday night into early Sunday morning. The fluff factor should be pretty good, too.

Discussion from the morning NWS is stating that the snow will be light (1-2) and the winds will not be as strong, but they are keeping the Winter Storm Warning up which is ridiculous, in my opinion. I think they are smoking something. The lake effect will be confined to North of 104 in Orleans, Monroe and Wayne counties for tonight. For most of us this is NBD.

The winds tonight will have more of a west component rather than NW so most of us will not even get the lake effect again. The beat goes on. I look forward to warmer temps by the end of next week. We need a pattern change to hopefully become more active storm wise. Have a good weekend everyone.

Weather Service has DROPPED the Winter Storm Warning and added Lake Snow Advisory for Monroe County, Lake Snow Warning for Wayne County, which makes MUCH more sense given that most of the snow will be lake enhanced and localized to lakeshore communities! Still, when the front approaches this afternoon/evening, still expect to see a quick burst of snow.

Special Weather Statement out of WBUF was right, a heavy burst of snow has arrived in Penfield, NY. It is snowing extremely hard! Radar shows it shouldn't last long. Imagine if we could get a steady snow like this for multiple hours! Us snow lovers would be happy. Drive safe!

Snowdog, I have to give you credit, it was a good call. But it is snowing hard right now in Chili!! Definitely a few fluffy inches so far. Everyone should begin to look at the Sunday/Monday time frame, something is starting to brew...

Winds *should start to organize the lake band more WNW hugging the Lake Ontario shoreline from Orleans to Wayne County. Upstream connections to Lake Huron and even a mostly frozen Georgian Bay and maybe a little contribution from Lake Superior should aid in some accumulations, even south of Rochester into Livingston Co, at least temporarily. Wind shifts to the SW early tomorrow morning though, so there's not a ton of time for snow to pile up.

As far as Sunday night/Monday morning goes - light general snowfall Sunday night with the clipper, but I wouldn't be surprised if we got another one of these bursts Monday morning when another arctic front plows through? Another windy day with more blowing snow.

Sorry guys, I was talking about next Sunday/Monday... The southern stream looks to start pumping in some real moisture to work with. My bad for the confusion. And if the airport reports anything less than 2" from this recent event, the thruway snow derby is rigged! We've been shorted way too many times this winter...

Did anyone receive any lake effect last night. I received ZIPPO in Gananda. It seems like it never got going and formed way over the lake. I thought there would be too much of a west wind to affect us but they put lake effect advisories and warnings up. I do not think it happened.

It better start getting active weatherguy as we are only at 52" for the year and we could end up below normal in snow this year officially. With the dearth of any big snows and storms in January really put us at normal for the year instead of way ahead like we were in November and December. We have nothing this week so we will probably end up below normal in January for snow. February is a short month so we need a good 40" or better month. March can go either way with snow. We could get nothing or a good amount. We have had some of our biggest blizzards in March but I have seen many March's go by with very little snow. We will see!!!!!

Sorry you can keep hoping but nothing changing with pattern. We had the bulk of our snow already. The latest arctic cold has also been over done. We had one really bad blast. This week is NBD with cold too. Not one met talking about it this week and no storm on the horizon.

Done plowing in Hamlin, for now. It has been SNOWY, COLD and WINDY. It LOOKS and FEELS like winter outside in western NY. Nickel and Dime snow means dollars for myself, so I will take it ALL winter EVERY winter. Ground is white with fresh snow what more could you want.

Both the GFS and the GEM are hinting at an absolute behemoth of a storm somewhere in the East around the February 5th or 6th time frame. There's a different storm potential being depicted before then as well, right around the time of the Super Bowl, but it's not quite as beastly. This alludes to what Stacey mentioned a few days ago: that Scott and herself believe there will be a bigger storm sometime in early February. I'd been harping on the subtropical jet becoming more active and introducing bigger storms by the tail end of January since 10 days ago, and it looks like that exact thing is going to play out starting with a storm off the Carolina coast around the 29th. Think back to Thanksgiving week through Christmas week and all of the storms that happened, and add 75 percent more moisture to each one. That will yield a decent picture of what the upcoming pattern will be like, pending actual placement of individual storms of course.

Meanwhile in Irony Land, the NHL Stadium Series game between the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils has been delayed...because it is too sunny ._.

I should provide an exception to the "75 percent more moisture" thing: the pre Christmas "Grinch storm" which brought all of that rain and ice. That bugger brought 3-5 inches of rain to several locations in the Midwest and Northeast, it would be extremely difficult to envision a winter storm producing more precipitation than that.

It would really go against the historical pattern if we ended up with less than normal for the season. Take a look at winter of 1955-56 for example where we had 35" between Nov & Dec and was a few inches below normal for Jan and we finished the season at 121." Also look at 91-92 where Nov-Dec was similar to this year and Jan was also a bit below normal and we ended up with 111." Given the amount of cold air expected to remain, I'd say our chances for nicely above average winter remain very favorable--- so just relax everyone (Snowdog)!

Come on Anon 1:05 we are suppose to buy a behemoth of a storm possibly 11 days away? We have a hard time predicting the weather 2 days away. Seriously stop the hype with this pattern change and jet change we might as well talk about underwear change. it has been the same thing for 3 years now. The pattern is always going to change to bring about many big storm opportunities and it never happens. What about the arctic blast that was coming this week? I heard it would be worse than the first one. Now not even below zero temps predicted. Just sit back and wait for spring.

All of the major models capable of going out to that range show the storm, and they all have a lot of moisture associated with it. I still expect no one to buy the notion of such a thing this far out. Even I'm not quite buying it yet because it's in the long range. It's still worth talking about because it's on the models and not a far fetched idea.

It's definitely not hype to say that the upcoming pattern could be rife with major storm potentials. The positive PNA which has been largely responsible for keeping the significant snows out of our region will be going negative, and the AO appears to be going negative as well. Negative PNA regimes typically lead to the development of a ridge off the Southeast coast, which is capable of pulling copious gulf moisture northward. One only needs to look back to the pre Christmas storm to see what I mean...that storm had a negative PNA in place and produced massive amounts of precipitation in many areas. The difference between that time frame and this one is the AO...it was positive during that storm but looks to be negative during early February. What this means is that the gulf moisture will be drawn up into much colder air than what we had during the pre Christmas storm. The only thing needed at that point is some kind of disturbance to roll up along the jet stream. All I will say on that matter is that the Pacific is still loaded up with disturbances, and they have to go somewhere.

Savannah, GA is currently under a Winter Storm Watch. Quite an ironic time to be thinking about spring ;D

Do not get NWS because there are not even wind chill watches or advisories posted? Disagree with Anon that the arctic blast will not be strong. Temps may get to 0 or 1 but winds are expected to be pretty good for the next 3 days. I believe wind chills could approach 20 to 25 below Tuesday/Weds mornings. Maybe I am wrong because I am not an expert.

The NWS graphical forecasts are indicating region wide wind chills between -20 and -25 early Tuesday morning. You are correct on that matter. That anon hasn't the faintest clue what he's talking about.

I have no idea, but I fully expect wind chill headlines to go up later this afternoon. To be fair, many places west of here did come in with Warning amounts yesterday, despite the downgrade that eventually occurred.

Wind Chill Advisories issued for the lakeshore counties, with Wind Chill Warnings elsewhere. The NWS is expecting a moderating influence off of Lake Ontario, which was absent during the early month outbreak owing to a more WSW-erly wind flow.

Looking through the models I see nothing of importance for the next 7-10 days at least. Yike. I hope Anon is right about this pattern change to more active that keeps getting pushed further and further out.

Absurd that some under an advisory and some under a warning. Really makes no sense. Wind chills will be between minus 20 to minus 30 in all areas Tuesday morning. Either way dangerous cold every where.

Told you Snowdog it will keep getting pushed back farther and farther. Before you know it April here and no storms and they will say pattern change next year with big snow. same old same old the last 3 years then they get mad at me because they all wish cast and I am being realistic funny. We become negative/whinners while they show optomism.

That's a terrible attitude IMO. Snow isn't the only exciting form weather can take. Example: Hurricane Sandy was pretty exciting I would think. 50-60 mph gusts with a driving moderate/heavy rain for 12 straight hours, can't possibly argue against that being exciting. Besides, meteorologists don't exist to convey news about exciting weather, they exist to be informative. Dangerous wind chills are something the public must be informed about as much as possible, regardless of how "boring" they might be.

"PRECIP CHANCES WILL ALSO INCREASE TOWARD THE END OF THE PERIOD...AS A STRONG LOW LEVEL BAROCLINIC ZONE DEVELOPS FROM THE SOUTHWEST U.S. EXTENDING INTO THE NORTHERN MID ATLANTIC STATES. SLIGHT MID/UPPER LEVEL TROPOSPHERIC WAVES WILL LIKELY INDUCE LARGE AREAS OF OVERRUNNING PRECIPITATION ON THE COLD SIDE OF THIS DEVELOPING LOW LEVEL FRONTAL ZONE...WITH THESE FEATURES LIKELY TO BE DIFFICULT TO TIME THIS FAR OUT."

This is exactly what I've been preaching about for the past 10 days, a transition to more storms. Notice how there are Winter Storm Watches in effect for parts of the Southeast. Those are related to the first storm in what will likely be a series of them. The transition to storminess was never "pushed back," at least not pertaining to what I've been saying. I did some digging into the past, here are a few statements of mine:

From the 17th:"Pretty good indication that the PNA will move closer to neutral by the end of the month, which would bring the southern jet stream back into play and result in a stormy pattern for someone."

And the 19th:"It just so happens that we are in an unfavorable pattern where the moist subtropical jet is suppressed, and will be until closer to February. The culprit is, has been and will continue to be the strongly positive PNA. Once that puppy goes neutral/negative in about a week's time the subtropical jet will reopen for business and deliver storm opportunities for the East. There is a lot of shortwave energy out in the Pacific that none of the models are currently seeing, and it all has to head east at some point. I am rather confident that the end of January into early February will be an interesting time for many in the eastern US."

Notice how the phrases "end of the month" and "end of January" appear. And right on schedule a substantial storm threat appears for the Southeast and Mid Atlantic. Notice also how I've stated "for someone" and later on "for the East." I never did mention Rochester specifically, or even the Northeast region. Just "the East," as in the eastern quarter of the country. And notice how I said the PNA would drop towards neutral/negative a week after that post from the 19th. And wouldn't you know it, the PNA is currently plummeting towards neutral, and likely soon to be negative. Everything is happening right on schedule, it's just not resulting in any storms in our backyard yet. So after the early week bitter blast the polar vortex will begin its retreat and allow the subtropical jet stream back into the picture. This is painfully evident in nearly all models and ensembles. And as for "Looking through the models I see nothing of importance for the next 7-10 days at least," well that's only if your model of choice is a freaking abacus. Look here:

That's a big ol' slug of moisture rising up out of the Gulf on the 18z GFS in about 8 days. I'm not saying this is precisely how I expect it to play out, in fact I don't have any expectations at all regarding specific threats right now. "Oh, but Anon, it's clearly staying south of us on that run." Yes. It is. ON THAT RUN. At that time range it's all about the big picture, and from my perspective that picture looks like a pretty painting. And here's a bonus: the monster storm seen on earlier runs is still there, Hour 228 through Hour 276.

I wouldn't be surprised either. I assumed earlier that the NWS was going with advisories instead of warnings because of a northerly component to the wind leading to lake modification. Then I looked at their forecast in depth and it shows a WSW wind for the balance of the brutal cold, no northerly component at all. If I'm not mistaken, that would keep Lake Ontario's influence confined to the immediate shoreline. It's possible that whoever administered the forecast and headlines earlier wasn't completely paying attention.

Anon 7:08 it did go to a wind chill warning as we thought. If is gets to 0 tonight with winds 15-25 mph have to believe we are in the minus 20 - minus 30 range tomorrow. It is 15 degrees air temp. now and the wind chill is minus 2. Wonder what school leaders will do tomorrow. Many closed today.

Still looks like a fun 2 weeks of storm tracking ahead for us. A quick look at the GFS will illustrate this. Not that anyone should take the run verbatim or pick on individual features, just look at the overall picture.

Does anyone recall a certain Anon (me) calling for this exact thing to occur, like, a week and a half ago? That the storm train would get rolling once the PNA started to nosedive? Not that I'm bragging or anything (I totally am). I just hope we aren't "rewarded" for this lengthy obnoxious bitter cold stretch with a series of great lakes cutters and a ton of rain/slop. Unfortunately that remains a real, albeit unlikely (in my humble opinion), possibility. Just something we always have to contend with when the energy involved is purely southern stream.